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I had a fight with my father today. I got invited to a cocktail-type event to meet other people who are applying to the same university as I am. I was informed I could bring guests. I asked my parents for permission to go, and immediately they took it upon themselves to write to my school and ask the principal if there were students from the lower years interested in the same faculty who wanted to go to learn more about the profession and the university. I didn’t mind at all, I’m always happy to talk to other people and happy to share my experiences with them, and I was quite willing to bring some of them along to the event, because I think it will be a good experience for them. It was how my parents decided to handle it that I wasn’t happy about. I would have preferred to have been more involved in this process because the invitation had been extended to me, not to them, and also because of my anxiety, I like feeling like I’m in control of the situation, because it helps curb my worrying a bit (and I’m already worrying because I feel like I need to make a good impression on the other people who will be there). I mentioned to my parents that although I was allowed to bring guests, I didn’t feel it was appropriate to invite so many to come with me, especially as I believe that ‘guests’ was meant to be interpreted as family and/or significant others. My father took this as a personal attack, started getting angry, and things went downhill from there. Honestly, I think I was at least partially at fault for this turning into an argument. I could have remained silent, I could have presented my side of this more tactfully, I could have done any of a hundred things to make the situation better, but I didn’t. So a situation that honestly wasn’t that big of a deal suddenly became a huge deal.

Now I sit here and wonder why that happened, and I start to realise that it’s the small things. The nervousness I felt at being invited to this event, the fact that my parents invited guests for me without really consulting me about it, the fact that I felt nervous because I don’t know these guests that well, the fact that… and so on. All the small things added up together meant that I was stressed and I wasn’t thinking clearly and I said things I shouldn’t have said. Even now, it feels like a much bigger deal than logic tells me it is, because I’m afraid. I am really, really afraid, and I’m not even sure of what anymore because all of the fears whirling around in my head are getting mixed up together and I can’t even process my thoughts clearly anymore.

Today was hard. There simply isn’t any other way to put it. And hard days happen sometimes. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.